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Clinton signs Omnibus Parks Bill
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TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - NATURAL RESOURCES POLICY ADVISORY
(please distribute freely)
TAP-RESOURCES
November 15, 1996
_______________________________________________________________
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release November 12, 1996
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
Today I have signed into law H.R. 4236, the "Omnibus Parks
and Public Lands Management Act of 1996," a comprehensive bill
addressing the management of the Nation's invaluable national
parks, forests, and other natural resources.
I am pleased the Congress passed this legislation with
bipartisan support in both Houses and has removed numerous
provisions to which my Administration strongly objected.
The Act will create or improve almost 120 national parks,
trails, rivers, or historical sites in 41 of our States. As
President Teddy Roosevelt said: "[t]he nation behaves well if
it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn
over to the next generation increased, not impaired, in value."
This Act will help ensure that we follow that advice and protect
for the next generation some of our most valuable natural and
historical resources.
One of the most important provisions that my Administration
supported would improve the management of the Presidio in
San Francisco. This military post, dating from 1776, includes
both beautiful open spaces appropriate for National Park Service
management and hundreds of unused buildings requiring a more
innovative approach. This Act establishes a government
corporation, known as the Presidio Trust, to refurbish and lease
these buildings quickly and efficiently, but in a manner
consistent with overall park management requirements.
Another laudable provision authorizes appropriations
of $17.5 million to help the New York-New Jersey Palisades
Interstate Park Commission to acquire lands within the Sterling
Forest Reserve, just 40 miles from midtown Manhattan. This is
one of the last areas of pristine forest in the Northeast and
the area is critical for supplying safe drinking water to
northern New Jersey.
I am also pleased that the Act establishes the Tallgrass
Prairie National Preserve in Kansas. The North American
Continent was once covered by over 400,000 square miles of
tallgrass prairie. Today, less than 1 percent remains. This
Act will help to restore 11,000 acres of tallgrass prairie,
an ecosystem of grass as tall as 9 feet, and includes trees,
flowers, birds and other wildlife. This ecosystem is nationally
significant and the Preserve is a welcome addition to the
National Park System.
My Administration supports many other provisions in this
omnibus legislation, including designation of 10 separate
nonfederal national heritage areas in Virginia, West Virginia,
Tennessee, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, South Carolina,
Iowa, Ohio, and New York. Other provisions would help to
preserve the Nation's cultural heritage by authorizing
memorials, protecting historic areas, designating the Selma to
Montgomery National Historic Trail in Alabama, and authorizing
the establishment of a Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial in the
District of Columbia.
This Act also includes scores of park boundary adjustments,
land exchanges, and provisions to assist agencies in protecting
national parks, forests, and public lands.
At the same time, the bill deletes almost all of
the provisions of the earlier conference agreement that my
Administration had found objectionable. These provisions
include those that would have adversely affected the Tongass
National Forest in Alaska, the Shenandoah National Park and
Richmond Battlefields National Park in Virginia, the Sequoia
National Park in California, and other national parks and
Federal lands. Unfortunately, the Act still includes a
few objectionable provisions. Among them is a provision
that changes the status of about 70 acres of fragile land
that was previously protected as part of the Coastal Barrier
Resources System. Prior to my signing of the Act this land
could only be developed at private expense. Now, this land will
be eligible for Federal development subsidies in the form of
infrastructure funding and flood insurance. The taxpayer should
not bear the risk of development in these damage-prone areas,
and my Administration will strongly resist any similar
legislative efforts in the future. In addition, several
provisions exempt specific land transactions from environmental
laws. Where these provisions allow, my Administration will
work to complete the transactions in full compliance with our
environmental laws.
I must also note that two sections of the Act require
careful construction and application to avoid violating the
Appointments Clause of the Constitution. First, to avoid an
unconstitutional limitation on the President's power to appoint
officers, I will regard the limitations on my ability to make
appointments to the Board of Directors of the Presidio Trust as
advisory. The second issue involves officers of the National
Park Service (NPS). To avoid an unconstitutional congressional
removal of an officer, I will not construe the Act to require
that the current NPS Director be subjected to the new
appointment process established by the bill. Further,
appointments to the NPS Deputy Director positions created by the
Act must be made in a manner consistent with the Appointments
Clause in order for them to exercise significant governmental
authority.
As I said on September 29th following House passage of this
legislation, this is not a perfect bill. But overall, the Act
represents a significant step forward in the conservation and
management of our national parks and other Federal lands for
the benefit of this and future generations.
I am pleased to sign H.R. 4236 into law.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
THE WHITE HOUSE,
November 12, 1996.
# # #
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